Ticket Master Schulenberg Becomes Billionaire in Germany

June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Selling tickets to Depeche Mode
concerts and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has made
Klaus-Peter Schulenberg a billionaire.

The founder and chairman of Munich-based CTS Eventim AG,
Europe’s largest ticketing service, has seen his fortune soar as
shares of Eventim have risen almost 40 percent in the past seven
months.

Schulenberg owns half of Eventim, according to the
company’s annual report, a stake that is valued at about $975
million based on yesterday’s closing price. He also has
collected more than $150 million in dividends and proceeds from
stocks sales since the company’s 2000 initial public offering.
That gives the 62-year-old a net worth of about $1.1 billion,
according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“He wants to be seen as a successful CEO, not as a
billionaire,” Hermann Zimmermann, a spokesman for Schulenberg,
said in a phone interview.

Eventim, which sells tickets, promotes live events and
operates entertainment venues, consolidated its ticket sales
business in Germany, according to Stefan Wimmer, an analyst at
Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt, who has a “buy” rating on the
company.

Early Stage

“Eventim was able at an early stage to build an IT-network
to connect all the stationary ticket shops,” said Wimmer. “If
a promoter then went to the company they could sell their
tickets everywhere in Germany.”

The company’s ticketing business, which represents 44
percent of revenues, generated 78 percent of its earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to its
annual report. The promotion and venue business represents 56
percent of revenue and generated 22 percent of its Ebitda.

Through its website and 20,000 locations across Europe,
Eventim sold about 100 million tickets to more than 180,000
events last year, its annual report said. It operates
entertainment venues and organizes concert tours, festivals and
other live events in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the U.K.

Schulenberg, who lives in Bremen, Germany, entered the
music business in 1973, opening an artist management and concert
promoting agency while studying economics at the University of
Bremen. He expanded into radio stations and newspapers and, in
1996, purchased ticket seller CTS GmbH, according to the
company’s website.

Ticket Battle

Eventim sold shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in
January 2000, raising $65 million. The company’s shares declined
0.5 percent to 30.46 euros, at 10:42 a.m. in Frankfurt.

The IPO came as the music industry’s profit center moved to
live events from recorded music sales, which are expected to
fall more than $7 billion to almost $23 billion worldwide in
2017, while sales from live events, such as theater and sporting
events, will increase to $31 billion by the same year, according
to New York-based consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

In 2007, the company struck a 10-year contract to provide
sales technology to Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the world’s
largest concert promoter.

Live Nation terminated the contract three years later,
after merging with Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., the world’s
biggest ticket seller. Eventim sued Live Nation before the
Paris-based International Court of Arbitration of the
International Chamber of Commerce, a case it lost last week.

The judgment, which could’ve awarded as much as $210
million to Eventim, according to Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst
Benjamin Mogil, probably won’t hurt the company, said Wimmer.

“The outcome wasn’t a disaster,” said Wimmer of the
verdict. “They aren’t dependent on the cash.”